#i can still use them on the flight home

[florida3exclamationpoints]

Who thinks I've already lost something

[actualnymph]

has anyone gone to another country for college? lmk

[mortalityplays]

talking about impenetrable accents/dialect just reminded me. when I was in Milan a couple of years back I was staying in this little rathole hotel and I had the biggest fucking migraine, so I was like non c'è problema I'll just go buy painkillers. of course every pharmacy on the map in a three block radius was closed, so my stupid ass just starts wandering around trying to figure out on the fly if you can get OTC from supermarkets in italy.

I walk into this little everything store (to my foreign eyes the kind of place that back home could sell you a bunch of carrots, a 6-pack of beer, pantyhose, bleach and a screwdriver set) and I see some household basics in the back but not what I need. with the confidence of a person who is only in the city for 3 days because he got bored and packed a bag and booked the cheapest flight available the week before (<= MENTAL ILLNESS), I was like no worries I know some italian, I can just ask.

I grab a bottle of water, walk up to the counter, and I'm like Ciao, hai il paracetamolo? And the guy is like che, and I'm like paracetamolo. Per la mia testa. And he's like che?

This is where I would have said 'aspirina' except I can't take aspirin for medical reasons, or 'antidolorifico' except I don't know that word and I've got no phone data for google translate and also I'm stupid. So in my fucked up leith-glasgow-italian accent I'm like paaa-ra-cetta-mollll-ooo. He's like ohhh bene, bene, and he calls another guy out of the back and asks him to go get something. Other guy then walks out of the store into the street, and before I can be like hey, che la fuck, he comes back and hands me a huge bundle of herbs.

At this point I'm like okay this entire interaction has been a bust, but these guys have been very nice and patient and they're both smiling happily at me because they've been of service, so I'm like ahh perfetto, grazie, pay them a couple of euros and leave.

EVENTUALLY I find a pharmacy that's open, and my head is fucking killing me, and my phone still isn't connecting, and now I have this small shrubbery poking out of my coat pocket, so I don't even bother looking around the shelves. I just walk straight to the counter and I'm like uhh ciao, scusi. And hearing my nightmare of an accent the guy answers in english and I'm like thank christ, do you please have paracetamol. Not aspirin, I can't take aspirin. And he's like yeah yeah hold on, goes into the back, comes out with what I need.

Only when he comes out he gives me this look, and then he starts laughing. And then he pretends he's not laughing and rings me up and I pay, and as I'm leaving I can see him losing it. But I don't care, my head is going to explode, I'm going back to the rathole to close the blinds and fall comatose for four hours.

When I get back to my hotel room I take off my coat and remember the huge bouquet of herbs in my pocket. They smell amazing, and I'm like I'm pretty sure this is parsley in which case I can just get some tomatoes and mozzarella later and make it work. but since I have no idea what that interaction was, I want to make sure. I bring out my phone to get a visual reference of what parsley leaves look like, and because I was using it for google translate earlier I put 'parsley' in the wrong box like a dope and translate it to italian.

prezzemolo

I wish I could have been the pharmacist in the moment he looked at my tired pissed off anglophone ass, heard me say 'paracetamol' in my fucked up accent, and turned around saw what was in my pocket. I'd have lost my shit too.

[queenerdloser]

my mom: wow i thought you'd be fully unpacked already!

me, an adhd: well. i have a very narrow window of time every day where i have the motivation to do anything. and every time i go to do something somehow i end up with eight more things to do.

[sophiamcdougall]

I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again

I mean, I am. But still.

So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.

So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.

At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.

Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell

So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.

I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.

This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.

Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.

I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.

Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.

We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.

"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."

"A what," he asks.

"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"

"Oh! A turtle!" he says.

"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.

The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.

"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.

"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.

"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.

"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??

The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?

I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χελώνα.

"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."

"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.

"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!

So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.

(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)

[fishofthewoods]

I see a lot of people clowning on the people of Pelican Town for not repairing the community center themselves or clowning on Lewis for embezzling and. like. Those criticisms aren't entirely unfair. But I think instead of coming at it from a perspective of "why can't the townspeople do this" we should be asking "why and how can the farmer do this?"

Like. Think about it. The farmer arrives in Stardew Valley on the first day of spring. By the first day they're obviously different. By day five the spirits of the forest who haven't been seen by the townsfolk in years or generations are speaking to them. By the second week they've developed a rapport with the wizard that lives outside town.

In the spring they go foraging and find more than even Linus, who's spent so many years learning the ways of the valley. Maybe he knows, when he sees them walking back home. Maybe he looks at them and understands that they're different, chosen somehow.

In the summer they fish in the lakes and the ocean for hours on end, catching fish that even Willy's only ever heard of, fish that he thought were the stuff of legend. They pull up giants from the deep and mutated monstrosities from the sewers.

In the fall, their crops grow incredibly immense; pumpkins twice as tall as a person, big enough that someone could live inside. The farmer cuts it down with an axe without even batting an eye. Does Lewis wonder, when he checks the collection bin that night and finds it full to the brim with pumpkin flesh? What does he think? Does he even leave the money? Does he have the funds to pay the farmer millions of dollars for the massive amounts of wine they sell? Or is it someone--something--else entirely?

In the winter, the farmer delves into the mines. No one in Pelican Town has been down there in decades. No one in living memory has been to the bottom. The farmer gets there within the season. They return to the surface with stories of dwarven ruins and shadow people, stories they only tell to Vincent and Jas, whose retellings will be dismissed by the adults as flights of fancy. People walking by the entrance to the mines sometimes hear the farmer in there, speaking in a language no one can understand. Something speaks back.

The farmer speaks to the the wizard. They speak to the spirit of a bear inside a centuries-old stone. They speak to the shadow people and the dwarves, ancient enemies, and they try to mend the rift. They speak to the Junimos, ancient spirits of the forest and the river and the mountain. They taste the nectar of the stardrops and speak to the valley itself. They change Pelican Town, and they change the valley. Things are waking up.

And what does Evelyn think? She's the oldest person in the valley; she was here when the farmer's grandfather was young. (How old *is* she, anyway? She never seems to age. She doesn't remember the year she was born.) Does she see the farmer and think of their grandfather? Does she try to remember if he was like this too, strange and wild and given the gifts of the forest?

And does their grandfather haunt the valley? He haunts the farm, still there even after his death; his body died somewhere else, but his spirit could never stay away for long. Does Abigail, using her ouija board on a stormy night, almost drop the planchette when she realizes it's moving on its own? Does Shane, walking to work long before anyone else leaves their house, catch glimpses of a wispy figure floating through the town? Does the farmer know their grandfather came back to the place they both love so much?

Mr. Qi takes interest in the farmer. He's different, too; in a different way, maybe, but the principles are the same. They're both exceptional, and no matter what Qi says about it being hard work and dedication, they both know the truth: the world bends around the both of them, changing to fit their needs. Most people aren't visited by fairies or witches. Most people don't have meteorites crash in their yard. Most people couldn't chop down trees all day without a break or speak to bears and mice and frogs.

The farmer is different. The rules of the world don't work for them the way they work for everyone else. The farmer goes fishing and finds the stuff of fairy tales. The farmer goes mining and fights shadow beasts and flying snakes. The farmer looks at paths the townspeople walk every day and finds buried in the dirt relics of lost civilizations.

The farmer is a violent, irrepressible miracle, chosen by the valley and destined to return to it someday. Even if they'd never received the letter, they would've come home.

They always come home eventually.

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP idea: To Be Human Again

Danny had not been human for a long time. His home dimension had long since fallen. He lost his friends and family to old age, watched their descendants rise and fall in the same way, and witnessed his Earth come to an end.

When the cosmos erupted and took the solar system he knew and loved, Danny was oddly at peace with the end. He was no longer a Halfa but a full Spirit of the Stars. Solar flares ran through his veins rather than blood, stardust decorated his skin in gently kissed freckles, and his eyes held the swirling clouds of the cosmos.

Danny had not become a ghost. He had transformed into an Ancient, commanding the prophecies, fates, and endless opportunities that all living beings could experience in their lifetimes.

He flouted through his domain, witnessing battles between Lords of Choas and Order. Planets gain life and break apart. Endless time stretching from the graveities he weaves to flouting stones.

As time passes, his name begins to fade into legends and myths, and even the ghosts that once battled with him forget their time together. They, too, can age at a much slower rate, but change comes for them. He is present for Box Lunch's birth, but when he leaves to create light in the darkness, he misses her growing up. When he returns, Box Lunch does not know him, trembling in place as she bows low like her parents.

He stares at her, wondering what he found wrong with her, until he realizes she is a young adult. Were it not for his once evil timeline, he wouldn't have known her child form. He had missed it.

His gaze falls onto the much older pair of ghosts who call him by his new title. Neither Box Ghost nor Lunch Lady show any signs of remembering his name. They greet him with his title, and act as if though that is his identifier.

How many eons had it been since he last heard someone call him Phantom? Or even Danny?

"Lord Star Weaver?" Box Lunch stammers when the giant being only continues to stare. "Is something the matter?"

"Hmm," he considers her question, wondering if his realizations upset him. It's not that he was lonely or that he missed the sound of his name. But he has spent eons in a haze focusing on his work, and now it's almost as if he was waking from a dream.

Dreams....what did those feel like again?

"Tell me, Box Lunch, are there any portals to any living Earths?" His voice booms over the Realms, echoing as if they were a part of him. Maybe they were.

Danny had not sat on his throne since his elder sister breathed her last, but he still remembered the way the Infinite Realms changed on his whims. It's where he learned to weave stars. The young woman's ghost looked startled before she gestured vaguely to a path behind her.

"Yes, sir. I regularly use the anchored portal to visit the local Earth. It's where my father was born before his death."

Danny looks down at Box Ghost before leaning toward Box Lunch's height. She is no bigger than his pupils, and she seems frozen in terror as his eyes glow with hunger. "Show me," he says.

Her parents make strangling noises, but they wouldn't dare speak against the King and Ancient of creation. They send their daughter worried tight smiles but encourage her to lead the Star Waver to the portal.

She flights for a solid hour, his large form sending every ghost into hiding as he passes. Despite not having a living heart, he knows that it beats a mile a minute within her chest as her glow flickers in uncertainty.

They arrive at the portal, a swirling green pool resting in the open mouth of a mechanical jester. Danny thinks it looks like the building of an amusement park. He remember going to one once with Sam. This had been the Funhouse, filled to the brim with trick mirrors.

The memory causes him to smile.

Lunch Box nervously moves her hands one after another, bowing at the waist and stepping to the side so Danny can consider the portal. He is much larger than the building and doubts his foot would fit inside the portal.

He should change his form.

"Here it is, Lord Star Weaver, the portal to the human-AGHHHH!" Box Lunch's words fade into a scream as two bright rings of light form around the Ancient. Fearing she had offended the being and he was planning on retaliating, she flings herself to the ground before the portal, begging for her existence.

"I will do anything!" She cries, head pressing against the glowing green stone underneath her. "Mercy, please, Lord Star Weaver."

"Anything? Then you shall be my guide in the new Earth, " a human voice says. Shocked, she raises her head only to see that the Ancient has vanished and that a human teenager with soft fluffy hair, big baby blue eyes, and the most innocent demeanor is staring back at her.

Were it not for the soul she could feel carefully folded up inside him, she would have thought him a human who stumbled through the portal.

"My....Lord?" she dares to ask, and she's rewarded with a soft smile. Honestly, the human body the Star Weaver has chosen is an odd one. It looks like a strong gust of wind could knock him over.

"Yes. Where does this portal lead?"

"Gotham," She shutters out, "The city within the United States of Earth. This portal is in te middle of a human outlaw named Joker, but humans there aren't able to see us very well so he never bothers me."

"Gotham" Danny rolls the name on his human tongue, tasting it as the sound vibrates through his bones and his heart. It's been so long since he last felt this alive, and if that was what the name could do, who knows what the city could bring him. "What a wonderful place to get lost in, don't you agree, big sister?"

"Um...I beg your pardon?" Lunch Box blinks, but he shifts her fate with a snap of his fingers. Since she had never been alive, having been a Realms born, Danny has control of her guiding star. He moved it for one that belonged to a version of herself born in the human world.

Lunch Box's body shifts into flesh and blood. Her draw drops as she stares at her human hands. Danny grins. "I'm Danny Fenotn, moving to Gotham with my older sister. Adopted, of course. Who might you be?"

She looks at him with horror and heartbreak, but what leaves her mouth is only three words: "I'm Della Fenton."

"Della." He repeats the name, nodding his head and smiling. "It's lovely."

"It was my mother's Earth name before her death, " she says in a daze, and Danny smiles, striding into the portal without a second glance.

"Come on, Della, I want to see our new home."

He steps into the portal, while she can only look out over the Realms that no longer whisper and speak to her. How could it? She was no longer a ghost. She silently apologizes to her parents, who would likely be waiting at their haunt for her, and turns away from the only home she's ever known.

She can not afford to anger the Star Weaver. If he can breathe life into her with a mere snap of her fingers, she fears what he can do to take it away.

On the other side of the portal Della finds that her King has been caught by humans, who have tied him up to a chair and a snickering clown waved a knife in his face.

His gentle smile did not leave his face even as the Joker sliced two thin lines on his cheek.

"Della" Danny calls never taking his eyes off the clown. "Is this the outlaw you spoke of?"

Human goons swarm her. She is shocked to find that they can touch her as she is thrown on the ground, only to remember she is now human. The dull ache in her chin is her new reality.

"Yes. That's the Joker," She says after getting her wits about her. One of the goons presses the heel of his foot on top of her head, slamming her back to the ground and breaking her nose. A scatter of snickers echoes through the room as Joker loudly cackles.

"That's right, little boy. I'm the Joker, and this is my Fun House. What were you two doing sneaking about here uninvited?"

There are teeth in the Star Weaver's answer, and she shivers in place, wondering how she will survive him. "Oh, I just felt like star gazing. Say, did you know your guiding star is becoming dim?"

[deadsetobsessions]

“Tim. Timmy. Ancients, kid, what are you doing?!”

Danny Phantom smacked away the instinctual terror of seeing an eight year old dangling out of a third story window.

“I gotta go take pictures of Batman and Robin! They’re out tonight!”

Danny thought that his barely healed vivisection wound might bust open from the sheer stress.

“Setting aside how you even know the patrol schedule of honest to god vigilantes, why’d you choose the window? The house is literally empty, just walk out the front door, for Ancient’s sake.”

Tim paused, a motion Danny was overwhelmingly thankful for, and blinked sheepishly.

“Um… for the aesthetic?”

Danny allowed the silence to settle between them before dropping his head into his waiting hands. Tim panicked.

“You- you can’t stop me!”

And yeah, Danny really can’t. In the months he’s been mooching off of the Drakes (not that they’ll notice), Danny’s learned that Tim Drake is nothing but relentless in the pursuit of whatever he sets his mind on. Whether thet might be putting hot chocolate in his cereal (which Danny doesn’t actually mind) or, apparently, stalking a pair of vigilantes.

He wanted to hack into the library cameras? Danny had to hover just to make sure the kid didn’t get caught after arguing for an hour about it.

He walked out of that argument with a loss, yes, but he also let Tim know that Danny cared about him. Danny also walked out of that argument with a new hatred for Janet and Jack Drake and his mind (just as diabolical as Tim’s) whirring with plans to haunt them.

Tim is never ever introducing his new little brother to Tucker. Ever.

“Okay. I don’t want to see you take unnecessary risks, but I’m also aware that I can’t really stop you. So. I’ll go with you.”

Maybe this is like… Tim’s obsession? When he put it that way, Danny lost the fight to prevent this tiny kid from what clearly is the only joy in his poor life.

“But…!” Tim’s eyes darted to Danny’s chest, the vivisection scars still fresh in his mind.

“They’re healed.” Danny pulled his dumbass little brother off the window sill, core settling as Tim follows willingly. “I’ll make us invisible and fly with you behind Batman and Robin so you can get even better shots. You can’t make any noise, though. That camera got a shutter sound, right?”

“Yeah!” Tim’s face brightened and Danny melted. He shoved a bottle of the (incredibly stinky but helpful in a pinch) ecto contaminated tap water into a backpack, along with some snacks and a blanket for when Tim gets cold. Danny’ll be fine, he’s got a Space Core. The cold his kind of his thing.

“Cool. We’ll stay out of earshot. If things starts to get too dicey, we’re heading home, okay?”

“Okay!” The look Tim shot him is full of trust and adoration and it makes Danny’s human heart squeeze painfully. “C’mon! I don’t want to be late!”

“We need to talk about your stalking tendencies later,” Danny said fondly.

“I’m not stalking them! I’m observing them!”

“Uh-huh,” Danny drawled, picking Tim up and making them intangible and invisible. “They’re not a bird observatory and also, even the birds in the observatory knows they’re being watched. Batman and Robin clearly doesn’t.”

Danny felt more than saw Tim’s pout.

He laughs as they fly just below the Gotham-brand of toxic smog. He waves to the City’s Spirit as Tim cranes his head around to catch sight of Batman and Robin.

“There!”

Danny obliged. With Danny’s flight, Tim got much better- much closer- photos than he would have originally.

Danny hung back as the pair of vigilantes swooped down to take care of a mugging.

“Wanna mess with them?” He grinned down at his little brother, canines glinting.

Tim looked up at him, admiration and mischievousness in his gaze. “Yes.”

Gotham parted her clouds in response to their glee.

——

Dick Grayson, AKA Robin, finally understood why criminals are so creeped out by him.

Other than the whole flippy child kicking grown people’s asses and winning thing, obviously (that, and Batman loomed menacingly behind him everytime a criminal even looked at Robin wrong).

Batman had picked up on it first, but the for entirety of their patrol, they kept hearing eerie little giggles and laughter. Haunting them. Never distracting. But persistent. And so creepy. He got goosebumps.

“B, I wanna go home.”

“Hm.” That’s a resounding yes if Dick’s ever heard one.

Maybe Alfred can chase away the giggles and chuckles.

Robin shudders and follows the Bat home.

——

Danny lowered the temperature as he held Tim up near Batman’s cowl so his brother could giggle menacingly. He knew for a fact that any recording device would get completely cram led by the sheer output of ambient ectoplasm he’s emitting. Plus, it freaked Robin out and raised the hairs on the back of the vigilantes’ heads. He tones it down when he noticed Tim rubbing his hands together.

He let out a quiet laugh, enjoying the flight with his brother in his arm and the light of the stars (thanks, Gotham) at his back.

——

Danny: oh, this kid’s got an Obsession, gotta let him do it safely, he’s a liminal from all that tap water

Danny: *forgets Tim isn’t a ghost nor is he from Amity and is therefore extremely breakable*

——

Danny and Tim: doing crime is a good bonding activity

Batman and Robin, who wants to say no it isn’t but they’re literally a pair of illegal vigilantes:

——

Dick as Robin: *cackles*

Tim, learning habits from stalking them: *giggles*

Gotham Criminals: *fear*

[xo100]

Airport - LN4

*:･ﾟ Summary: Lando Norris offers a woman, who missed her flight, a ride on his private jet to Monaco. They bond over light conversation and flirting, leaving with the possibility of seeing each other again.

*:･ﾟ Word count: 1323

୨ৎ

The race weekend had been long, grueling, and filled with adrenaline. Lando Norris was ready to head back to Monaco, to the comfort of his own home where the sound of engines could be swapped for the quiet of the Mediterranean breeze. As he made his way through the airport, sunglasses perched on his nose and his cap pulled low, he weaved his way through the flow of people without drawing too much attention to himself.

It wasn’t until he neared the private terminal that he noticed something out of the ordinary: a young woman standing near the gate of a commercial flight to Monaco, her expression a mix of frustration and panic. Lando slowed his steps, curiosity piqued. She stood there, gazing hopelessly at the closed gate, gripping her passport tightly. Her bags were tossed haphazardly by her feet as though she’d raced through the airport only to fall seconds short of making it to her flight.

The sharpness of disappointment etched on her face was all too familiar. He’d been in similar situations before, dashing through airports, missing flights by mere moments. Only, she didn’t seem to have the luxury of a private jet waiting just down the hall like he did.

Lando hesitated. He didn’t know her story, but something about the way she stood there, looking so defeated, tugged at him. He glanced at his watch. His jet was leaving soon, but he still had time. And, well, maybe this wouldn’t be the worst idea. What was the harm in offering a bit of help?

He pulled his cap down a little further and crossed the distance between them, moving casually as though he were just another traveler making his way to his flight.

“Missed your flight?” he asked, his voice light but laced with concern.

She turned to look at him, startled at first, then quickly took him in—cap, sunglasses, and all. Recognition flickered in her eyes, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Just a flicker.

“Yeah,” she breathed out with a weak chuckle. “By about three minutes. They wouldn’t let me through even though the plane is still sitting there.”

“That’s tough,” Lando said, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Where you heading?”

“Monaco,” she said with a shrug, though it seemed like a more resigned gesture. “Guess I’ll have to wait for the next one.”

Lando nodded, glancing around the terminal. The airport was buzzing with the usual chaos, and he could see the stress rolling off her shoulders. He thought for a second, then made a split decision. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“I’m heading there too,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “I’ve got a private jet leaving soon. If you want, you can take the flight with me.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and her lips parted slightly, a mixture of surprise and hesitation crossing her features.

“A private jet?” she asked, a little skeptical. “Isn’t that...a bit much?”

Lando laughed softly. “Maybe, but I’ve got plenty of room. Plus, you look like you could use a break from airport stress. I promise it’s less chaotic than commercial flights.”

She blinked, clearly processing his offer. The idea of getting onto a private jet with a guy she just met—even if he was Lando Norris—probably wasn’t something she had expected when she woke up that morning.

“That’s...really kind of you,” she said after a moment, her voice soft. “But I couldn’t—“

“Sure you can,” he interrupted, his tone teasing but warm. “Think of it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You miss your flight, and instead of waiting around, you get to fly in style. How often does that happen?”

She laughed at that, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. “When you put it like that…”

Lando grinned, taking her hesitation as a positive sign. “C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen? You get to Monaco an hour earlier, and we both get some company for the flight. No need to sit around waiting for the next one.”

She looked at him again, weighing her options. He could see the internal debate playing out in her eyes—logic versus the sheer spontaneity of his offer. Finally, she sighed, her lips curling into a tentative smile.

“Alright,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “Why not? But I’ll warn you, I might be a terrible conversationalist after the day I’ve had.”

“That’s okay,” Lando replied with a wink. “I’m known to talk enough for two.”

With that, he grabbed one of her bags effortlessly, motioning for her to follow him toward the private terminal. She trailed behind, still looking a little shell-shocked, but there was something about the ease of his manner that made her feel less anxious about the whole thing.

As they walked, Lando kept the conversation light, asking her about her trip and how she ended up almost missing her flight. She shared a story about how her taxi had gotten stuck in traffic, the minutes ticking away as she helplessly watched the airport get closer and closer. Lando laughed, offering a few of his own travel horror stories in return. By the time they reached the sleek jet waiting on the tarmac, the mood between them was light and comfortable.

-

“You weren’t kidding,” she muttered as they approached the aircraft, eyes wide as she took it all in. “This is...wow.”

Lando chuckled and waved a hand. “It’s not bad, right?”

They climbed aboard, and soon enough, they were airborne. The hum of the engines was soothing, and the view of the clouds stretching out below them was a peaceful contrast to the chaos of the airport they’d left behind.

“You know,” she said after a while, leaning back in her plush seat, “I still can’t believe I’m on a private jet with you. This feels surreal.”

Lando smirked, leaning forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees. “Trust me, I’ve been in a lot of surreal situations lately. This one’s pretty tame.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “I guess that’s fair. Monaco, huh? Do you live there?”

“Yeah, for a while now,” he replied, glancing out the window. “It’s a nice place to unwind after the craziness of race weekends.”

“I’ve always wanted to visit,” she admitted. “I mean, I’ve been through a few times, but never really had a chance to stay.”

“Well, maybe this is your chance,” he said, eyes twinkling. “What’s your plan once we get there?”

“I was supposed to meet a friend,” she said with a sigh. “But it’s not set in stone. What about you?”

“Just heading home,” Lando said, then added with a teasing grin, “But if you need a tour guide while you’re there, I might be available.”

She raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging at her lips. “Are you offering to show me around Monaco, Lando?”

“Maybe,” he said, his grin widening. “Depends if you’re up for it.”

She laughed softly, glancing out the window again. “I might take you up on that.”

For the rest of the flight, the conversation flowed easily, peppered with light flirtation and comfortable silences. There was something so natural about it—like they’d known each other for longer than just a chance meeting in an airport.

As the jet began its descent toward Monaco, Lando glanced over at her, feeling a strange sense of contentment.

“Guess we’re almost there,” he said.

”Yeah,” she replied, though her tone held a hint of reluctance. “Thanks again for this, Lando. You really saved my day.”

He flashed her a playful grin. “Anytime. Maybe I’ll see you around Monaco.”

“Maybe,” she said with a smirk of her own. “But next time, let’s hope it’s under more normal circumstances.”

“Deal,” he replied with a wink.

As they stepped off the jet and into the warm Monaco air, Lando couldn’t help but think that maybe missing her flight had been the best thing that could’ve happened to either of them that day.

୨ৎ

*:･ﾟ Notes; thank you for reading, I hope y’all enjoyed! Remember requests are open if you would like to request something. Also question for you guys, is there someone who can help me with the link of the requests so I could put it in my masterlist? I don’t know where to find that link, DM me if you know.

[b1asho]

While it's on the mind, here's my wings of fire designs too. Not as much of a brainrot but still fun. Bad take or am I cooking with some of them? Let me know in the comments. Here's some (too many) notes:

I really liked the original designs when I first read these books, but I wanted to try my hand at uhh changing them a little. Mainly making them more distinct from each other (even if this irreversibly breaks canon XD)

-Sandwings live in a mixed savannah and desert habitat and have bodies adapted for resource scarcity, effective hunting, and heat dispersion. They have large ears to help cool off and listen for stuff. They can fly, but pretty weakly in comparison to some others, mainly using flight to navigate their large territories , get onto cliffs, and scan for prey. They typically climb up somewhere and then jump off. They are built like felines, and use a solo stalk and rushdown hunting approach coupled with a sting instakill. They live in family groups, with a ‘queen’ title going to the alpha female 💪 and everyone else hunting and living together. They are immune to their own venom, which acts very similarly to a scorpion’s but in a massive dose, causing numbness, breathing difficulties seizures, and eventually death. It takes time for them to make more once they’ve expended the dose, so they rarely use it outside of hunting or life/death situations (though the prospect of being stung is very scary to everyone else, and they will instinctively raise their tail when startled or threatened)

-Skywings live in high mountainous and forested areas, with some living in the lowlands. They are powerful flyers and very acrobatic due to their tail, though this comes at the expense of their agility on land and the strength of their non wing arms. They have long legs with powerful talons for grasping prey midair or snatching them from off the ground. They hunt and live alone unless they have a partner. Communities are made up of a loose group of related individuals who rarely collect in one place at once(queendom structure are a more recent and ‘unnatural’ thing for them, but very useful for organizing military efforts and empire building). They stay aloft for long periods of time and usually only land on their cliff homes. They need a sprint or a takeoff point to get flying, though. Unlike every other tribe, they have a noticeable difference between male and female (being a nose horn and red face for males.) males are prized for these features, and having a pretty husband is seen as an attractive trait for a queen.

-Seawings live along the coast. They normally only venture out of the water for trade and other resources, since they can get everything else they need underwater. Their large neck houses gills protected by thick pads that will close when on land, while their lungs are in their mid chest. Primarily adapted to swimming, they have very strong tails and webbed fingers and toes. They will also use their wings to steer and paddle, as well as manipulate things their other arms can’t reach. They will hunt in packs, corralling fish and other animals into a kill zone. They are very clumsy on land and in the air with their short limbs and weak wings. Their bioluminescent spots can be flashed for communication, and compared to the other tribes they have pretty poor vocal ability (due to the gills in their neck getting in the way) and will supplement with other spot/sign signals. Every individual has unique spots, though their glowing ones come in consistent numbers, sizes, patterns, and places on their body so they can use them for common language across their group. However, Different groups from different parts of the ocean have different numbers of spots in different areas, making cross communication via only spots difficult. Their whiskers help navigate in close or dark areas, and are seen as a status symbol.

-Mudwings live in warmer areas, specifically marshes and other wetlands (though sometimes in some forested areas too). Their thick armor helps protect them from other mudwings/competition, while also acting as an insulator that allows them to easily venture a wider range than other tribes from warm climates. Physically, they are the strongest and bulkiest. They typically use the element of surprise and their overwhelming size and strength to take down large prey. However, unlike other tribes they tend to eat more plants too due to their large size (all of them are technically omnivores, but meat makes up the dominant part of their diet because of their energy needs and their ancestors). They are also the poorest flyers out of the bunch, having sacrificed that for size and strength, though they can do short bursts similar to a chicken to get to hard to reach areas or to surprise attack prey faster than them, they’re similar to hippos and are adapted to living in the water too, using powerful webbed arms to propel themselves and dig through the mud, and their large lung capacity to stay submerged and hidden for long periods. Their nostrils, ears, and eyes are located near the top of their head, which also gives more room for Tusks. They use these to root around occasionally defend themselves. Tusk maintenance and appearance is very important to them. They live in large groups of families in the same area and have more communal social standards than other tribes.

-Rainwings live in tropical areas and have a very small habitat range. This has caused them to look and act very different than most tribes, leading to poor perception of them. They use their long claws, strong grasping fingers, and prehensile tail to climb around, and are pretty much arboreal. They have wings meant for quick takeoffs and flight in dense areas, and are pretty agile and swift. They and aren’t that great at sustained flight or dealing with high altitudes and winds though . Their frill is delicate and used for emoting (probably originally for mating purposes) Their skin is packed with chromatophores that they can use to match their surroundings, and they have loose ridges in their skin that they can raise to enhance the effect. Their skin is constantly changing color due to their brain activity, though they have set patterns/colors for emotions and communication. They can also choose to focus on organizing their skin patterns to get coordinated colors and patterns, since normally it’s pretty disorganized. They eat a lot more plants due to their environment and due to social standards, but arent herbivores. They have the ability to spit acid out of hollow retractable fangs, and use precise shots of this coupled with their camouflage ability to get prey. They can also spray it at higher velocities for defense and offense, though this expends their supply much quicker. They don’t recognize a queen in their communities and are fairly disorganized into different cooperative groups.

-Nightwings are the result of a group that split off onto an island, though the volcanic activity on their original island escalated to the point where they had to emigrate. They are great fliers, using their wings and tail extensions to travel great distances to track prey and ambush from above. When on land, they aren’t particularly fast or strong, and instead are built for persistence. Their hunting tactic involves getting an initial bite onto prey, then waiting for it to succumb to infection. Their spines, horns, muscles, and talons are mainly for defending their kill from other Nightwings rather than hunting it in the first place. As a result of this competition, they aren’t naturally very social like other tribes, They are mainly nocturnal.

-Icewings live in the colder tundras and snowy forest environments. They are pack hunters, using their speed and persistence to take down prey, similar to wolves. Their long overlapping scales help them trap heat and survive in the cold, and while the guy i drew here is pretty skinny they also store fat much more readily than other tribes. Their bowed wings are mainly used to swoop in in prey, and like falcons they often take steep dives to grapple it. Their antlers only grow in at a certain time in the year, but royalty will wear embellished artificial ones in the meantime.

[duck-a-doodle]

COD IMAGINES

TACTICAL CUDDLE BUG 1/4 Chapters 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

TF141!reader x 141 Masterlist

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The most serious member of the 141 is secretly a very affectionate person.

----------------------------------------------------------

Of all the members in your task force, you were the least experienced. Knowing that you have a long way to go, you appear extremely serious even in less tense situations. Hence, jokes tend to fly over your head during some of your bonding moments.

Perhaps you smiled and joked a little less, but you did handle everything with great tenacity. Yes, you were a good soldier. However, you have also made the rest of your team slightly concerned for your psyche.

If even Johnny's jokes fail to reach you, then you needed a serious intervention.

The team decided to switch up their tactics with you. Done after a meeting? We're getting ice-cream. You're free in the evening? Let's watch football. You're going to the gym? You need a spotter, let's all go to the gym.

Regardless of all their efforts, there was still a sense of divide from you. At this point, they think you just needed a bit more time to get used to them because they can clearly see you struggling to bring your walls down.

The surprise came when they were on a returning flight to their home base after a strenuous operation in the Alps. Said task had left you frozen, hungry and tuckered out. The whole team remained silent for the first 30 minutes of the ride, and suddenly, Captain Price felt a pressure leaning into his lateral.

All of the 141 members ogled at your sleeping form as you tucked yourself deeper into the captain's side, clearly drawn into his warmth after staying too long out in the cold. They watched as your stiff, pale fingers latch onto the crevices of his vest.

Johnny and Gaz saved multiple photos of you and the captain, and Ghost secretly took a few himself.

They now refer to you as cuddle bug.

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A/N: I need everyone to get in a dog pile right about now.

[wileys-russo]

summer christmas II a.russo

third little christmas fic installment! summer christmas II a.russo

"less, you're being a little bit dramatic." you chuckled, laid on the bed watching your girlfriend rifle through her suitcase grumbling and mumbling under her breath. "i am not! this is just wrong, its all wrong." the english woman shook her head with a huff as you merely smiled in amusement.

"baby you're just hot and bothered, you'll adjust in a few days! you've barely been here twenty four hours." you assured, pulling yourself to sit against your headboard and crossing your legs underneath you.

"exactly, and in that twenty four hours i've slept for about two of them!" the normally soft spoken blonde snapped, yanking a red bikini out of her bag and tossing it into the ever growing piles of clothes on the floor beside her.

"that's just the jetlag babe. it was the same when you came here last time, unfortunately the flight and the time differences don't change lessi, i tried speaking to someone about it but apparently mere mortals can't change geographical lines and locations." you teased gently with a grin, perfectly manicured eyebrows furrowing together in a scowl sent your way shortly after.

"it wasn't anywhere near this hot when we were here in august, i'm going to melt!" the girl groaned, kicking her case closed and flopping down backwards on the end of the bed, face buried in her hands.

"thats because again its summer right now less. i also spoke with mother nature but she won't drop the temperature, turns out she's nearly as stubborn as you." you sighed sarcastically, laying down so your head was near hers as she rolled onto her side.

"you are not cute." the blonde warned as you winked, poking her nose as she smacked your hands away and rolled onto her back again.

"this is like opposite day on repeat! its supposed to be freezing cold and you wear hundreds of layers and drink hot chocolate and get cosy and have a fire and chop down a tree an-" your british girlfriend rattled off her regular traditions, ticking them off with her fingers.

"we can still do that stuff! well maybe not all of it, but we can watch christmas movies and go look at lights and have iced chocolates! we can take my nieces to the carols in the park, we can also go to the beach everyday and out on my brothers boat and we can stay out later because the sun doesn't set till after nine, and my mum got us all matching pyjamas! they're just...summer ones." you tried to assure, moving onto your stomach and looking down at her with a few encouraging nods.

"but its not the same! i've never had a hot christmas, all of its just wrong." alessia moaned, arms covering her face as you deflated a little and wriggled back to sit up, fiddling with your fingers in your lap for a second as doubts began to swirl around in your head at her words.

the two of you played at arsenal together and quickly clicked when alessia transferred, having met at a few social events the last couple of years you'd been in england and gotten close with some of your english teammates who'd gone above and beyond to make you feel welcome.

it helped having steph and caitlin around, and then now kyra, plus the rest of your matildas teammates scattered throughout london whom you regularly made efforts to catch up.

you and alessia had only been seeing one another for about a year and a half now but if you asked anyone who'd spent time with you during that period they'd tease you acted as if it had been much much longer.

last year you'd spent your first christmas in england with the russo family, finally having a reason not to go home which as much as it broke your mums heart she was overjoyed you'd met someone, bonus being it someone as kind and thoughtful as alessia was.

but this year you'd promised to come home for christmas, not having much of a chance to see your family all season between the olympics, international games, league games and champions leagues matches that had kept you more than busy the last twelve months.

you'd not expected your girlfriend to come with you, the two of you more than accustomed now to having to spend time apart playing for different countries. but when alessia teasingly floated the idea over dinner, feigning offence you hadn't asked her, it had all blossomed from there and now here she was.

you were much more used to the long haul flight home than the blonde was though, having done it dozens of times over the years for international commitments among the league games in england.

you'd come home pretty much the very day your break started, just under a week earlier than alessia to allow her to spend a little bit of the december break with her own family before she flew herself to australia.

but ever since you'd picked her up from the airport yesterday you could tell she was rather miserable.

there'd been turbulence and two screaming babies on the flight despite the fact the striker had flown business, which meant she'd not slept anywhere near as much as planned, and adjusting to the time difference hadn't been kind.

so slowly those doubts that you'd made a wrong choice asking her here grew louder and louder, until you just had to say something or else it felt as it you might burst.

"do you wish you'd stayed in england?" you asked quietly, attempts to mask the insecurity in your voice null and void as your girlfriend shot up, guilt written clear all over her face which sank as it caught the obvious nerves in your features that she regretted her choice to come home with you for the holidays during break.

"what? baby no of course not. i'm so excited to finally meet your whole family and spend time with them and with you, i'm so sorry for being so negative. i'm just tired and grumpy but that is not at all fair to take out on you." the blondes hands moved to settle either side of your face, bright blue eyes scanning yours as you gave a small nod, clearly not believing her.

"oh my love, really i am excited! we're going to do all that stuff you just said and i want to learn about your traditions and what you like doing for christmas. a summer christmas is just new for me thats all! but new things aren't bad things." alessia pushed, thumbs stroking your jawline and feeling the obvious tension in your body drop just a little at her words.

"less are you sure? it wouldn't be easy but we can find a flight back for you before christmas eve." you questioned, the taller girl nodding enthusiastically and leaning in to press her lips sweetly against yours a few times.

"more than sure, there's no need for that at all. this is no different to when you stayed in england with me and had a winter christmas last year, and you were nothing but cheerful and sweet and lovely the entire time." the blonde promised with another nod, stealing a few more kisses as the corners of your mouth upturned a little.

"mm theres that smile, welcome back." the striker grinned happily, a laugh finally leaving you as she practically tackled you back to the bed, moving on top of you as her hair fell around the pair of you like a curtain.

"i wasn't the one with the smiling problem russo." you poked her as she winced sheepishly. "i know. but from now on, i will embrace these new experiences with open arms!" the english woman announced, laying down on top of you and kissing all over your face.

"i'm happy to hear that." "yeah? i'm happy to say it." "good, because its thirty two degrees outside right now and the air cons only in the living room." you scrunched your nose up as the blonde faltered, taking a deep breath and exhaling.

"thats fine! i'm fine. lets just go to the beach!"

~

it turns out you and your girlfriend clearly had different expectations of what open arms and a beach day meant, as alessia lay on the beach recharging herself in the sun and you'd spent the entire time begging she get in the water with you.

"lessi come on! what happened to being open to new experiences?" you groaned, stealing her sunglasses and slipping them over your nose as she squinted up at you, sheltering her eyes with her hand.

"give!" the blonde demanded, making grabby hands as you shook your head and shuffled back on your knees. "swim!" you countered, smacking her thigh gently as she sighed heavily.

"swimming in december feels illegal." "not going in the water when you're at the beach is illegal." "babe the waves are huge, i'll get...what did you call it again?" "mm, dumped? we're not going surfing alessia!" you laughed, pushing her hand away where she reached for her sunglasses back again.

"but tanning feels so nice!" the blonde whined, arms covering her face. "you'll have plenty of time to get sunburnt like a little lobster baby, i promise." you cooed sarcastically, your girlfriend shoving you and finally sitting up on her towel.

"that was one time." "lessi its every time, you refuse to wear sunscreen!" "sun cream, and because it feels...sticky." "well does crying about how much it hurts to shower and peeling off your burnt skin feel better?" you countered quickly, the striker opening and closing her mouth.

"come on!" you hopped up to your feet, holding out your hand toward her and wiggling your fingers impatiently. "you know your persistence is incredibly irritating." alessia gave in, grabbing your hand as you pulled her up to stand.

"and here you used to find it endearing." you teased, the blondes hand smacking against your ass as you blushed and pushed her. "theres families here!" you warned as the girl smiled, simply shrugging and interlocking her fingers with yours as you tossed her sunglasses onto her towel and lead her down to the waters edge.

"how do you get in without being smashed by the waves?" her grip on you tightened as another set came rolling in. "timing. you see how the waves all crash here? thats the breaking point, once the last wave crashed you move past that, and then you just duck dive under the big ones until you get out the back!" you explained, the english woman staring on clueless as you laughed.

"come on, on three we run into the water. one, two..." again her grip on your hand tightened but she nodded none the less. "go!" you raced off but felt her hand slip out of yours, glancing back as alessia shook her head and remained rooted in position.

"how is it thirty five degrees and the water is freezing cold?" the striker scoffed having stepped one foot in and recoiled immediately as you grinned at her from the shallows.

"i swear babe if you say something about mother nature when i get out there i'll drown you!" the blonde warned seriously as you held up your hands, glancing over your shoulder.

"okay now, go baby!" you encouraged, waving for her to run to you, a moments hesitation passing before she gingerly waded in, wincing every few steps until finally she'd made it past the break point, the water barely up to her hips.

"jesus christ i'm going to get hypothermia!" the older girl wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver making you roll your eyes. "but i'm the dramatic one?" you questioned in disbelief. "no not dramatic baby, sensitive." the girl patted your cheek condescendingly with a pout as you narrowed your eyes at her.

"dickhead." you poked her with a shake of your head. "do you want to know a secret to adjusting to the water faster?" you asked as your girlfriend nodded eagerly.

"well its quite simple, you just get your head wet!" you grinned and before the taller girl could blink you'd barreled into her, sending her toppling over into the water as she surfaced with a gasp.

"oh you're dead." you squealed as you were tugged down into the water with her, plunged in head first before you popped back up with a cough, having swallowed a lungful of water in the purpose.

"hey you said snowball fights was a big thing in england?" you questioned, the two of you moving into water a little deeper as alessia nodded. "well we can do that too." you promised as the girl looked at you clearly confused.

"how? theres no snow." "no, but there is sand!" you grinned, smacking a handful of wet sand from the ocean floor into her hair as she gasped.

"are you fucking kidding-" "wave! duck!" you interrupted, grabbing her by the arm and pulling the pair of you under, tugging her out to swim even deeper past where the waves started and you could relax a little more.

"it was a joke!" you laughed as your girlfriend launched at you once you did, latching onto you and forcing your head back underwater with a grunt, the two of you wrestling in the water before you yelled for a truce.

"maybe this isn't so bad." the blonde admitted, swimming up behind you, arms circling your waist and her chin making a home on your shoulder as the pair of you stared back toward the beach, the water now calm and bright turquoise, sparkling where it was hit with the sun.

"thank you for agreeing to come." you turned your head, capturing her lips in hers with a soft smile. "thank you for asking me to come." alessia squeezed you appreciatively before you both turned back to your people watching.

"are they playing...cricket?" your girlfriend asked in bewilderment watching a young family race back and forth across the sand. "yeah! beach cricket, an aussie classic. but not surpassed by backyard cricket, which you'll get to experience on christmas day." you explained as the blonde hummed curiously.

"really?" "yeah! we have a tournament every year with the whole family even my nan and pop, between lunch and presents." "so we do christmas lunch, not dinner, right?"

you nodded, answering a few more questions about what the next few days had lined up for the pair of you, stopping your explanation of why santa was left a beer and not milk when familiar lips started to trail across your neck.

"you're going to get us in trouble if you leave a mark russo." you chuckled in warning, relaxing in her hold as the striker merely hummed, your eyes closing as your face was bathed in sunshine and soft kisses were peppered down your jaw.

"well your mums already made it very clear that i have permission." you groaned at that, pushing her away and pulling a face. "well you've ruined the mood with that haven't you." you huffed, starting to wander back in until fingers hooked into the sides of your bikini bottoms and tugged you backwards.

"i'm sorry! i've just never met a woman who took such healthy interest in her daughters sex life." alessia teased, your response swallowed with her mouth pressing to yours with a cheeky grin.

"its not funny! its humiliating she has no boundaries and we're stuck with her for the next week." you groaned, head resting against her shoulder as the girls thumbs traced circles against your hips, the two of you staying in your childhood home where everyone would be gathering for the holidays.

"baby its not that bad. she's just very...progressive! and supportive." "you know i think if you were a boy she'd have left condoms on the side table and the book of karma sutra on the bed."

~

"santa came get up get up get up!" you groggily lifted your head feeling three little bodies jump up and down on top of you, alessia stirring next to you with a tired exhale.

"are you awake yet? wake up!" one of your nieces shouted in your ear as you tiredly lifted a hand and made a thumbs up, the three young girls belonging to your older brother taking that as a yes and jumping down, racing off to wake up the rest of the family.

you exhaled tiredly, dragging your hands down your face and jolting as your door swung open again. "hope no ones naked! merry christmas girls, up we get!" your mum sung out, flinging open your blinds as you groaned.

"jesus christ mum come on!" your cheeks flushed red at her brash words feeling alessias body vibrate with a small chuckle beside you as the woman shrugged, flicking on your light and striding on out again.

"i think i'm adopted." you grumbled, rolling over and burying your face in your girlfriends shoulder. "well thats quite the wake up." the brit rasped out with another chuckle, hand rubbing up and down your back soothingly.

"merry christmas less." you pulled back and rested your head on your pillow again, bright blue eyes and a tired smile staring back at you. "merry christmas love." she repeated, pecking your lips quickly given neither of you had brushed your teeth yet.

"get up!" you both winced as a hand smacked against the wood of your door, your brother flipping you off in the doorway as you rolled your eyes and forced yourself up into a sitting position, alessia rubbing her eyes and exhaling, face still puffy with sleep.

"how is it already hot?" the english woman groaned in disbelief, the two of you sleeping under a thin sheet and even then barely able to touch one another bar a bit of hand holding when you were dozing off due to the thick humidity of your childhood bedroom.

"welcome to your first summer christmas." you laughed, running a hand through her hair as she hummed, the two of you gradually getting out of bed and already hearing the commotion of your family downstairs.

"mum no photos! its seven in the fucking morning." you groaned, wincing at the obvious click of her phone camera shoved in your face as you and alessia stumbled into the kitchen.

"oi you watch your fucking mouth!" your dad chimed in with a point making your girlfriend laugh and your eyes roll as the pair of you followed everyone into the living room.

"look look! this ones for me!" your eldest niece gasped, all three of them already riffling through the mountain of presents as you sent her an encouraging smile and collapsed onto the corner of the sofa.

alessia took a seat beside you as you slung one of your legs over hers, the pair of you exhaling in relief at the air con blasting right above you and wishing a merry christmas the rest of your family who were lounging around the room, your dad taking charge to handing out presents.

"oh thank you!" your girlfriend smiled appreciatively as he handed the pair of you one each, labeled from santa which you knew meant they were from your mum which was what you whispered in the blondes ear who chuckled and squeezed your knee.

though as you began to unwrap yours you realized very quickly you may have been a little too quick with your excitement, catching the word 'dental dams' on the side of the box and stuffing it down the side of the sofa before anyone else could see.

"oh my god mum!" "what? santa just wants you to be safe darling!"

[koenigami]

not sure if you allow it, but how does wriothesly react when the reader uses their safe word during an intense session?

tags : fem!reader, smut, crying, use of safeword, aftercare, comfort, +18

It's hot in the room, the constant gurgling of the pipes reminding you that WRIOTHESLEY must have turned up the heating higher than usual. Then why is your body shivering, with goosebumps all over your skin? You can't see him, can't hear him because he has barely talked to you ever since he's returned from his office. Yet you feel his large, intimidating form loom over your body from behind. You can't speak, can barely breathe with his constricting hand around your throat that somehow seems to get tighter by every passing second.

He's immune to your whimpers, to the tears rolling down your cheeks. With each forceful thrust of his, you hear the bed creak and feel your knees get weaker, your body loosing strength until you're nothing but a limp toy for him. You want to get up, push him away, but the grip his other hand has on your wrists while holding them behind your back- He's just too strong.

That's when even the last ounce of pleasure leaves your body and you're left with nothing but dread and panic. "Red, p-please." you barely recognise your own voice, hoarse and frightened. "No more, please, red."

The pressure on your windpipes is gone instantly. You realise it, not by the oxygen that is easier entering your airways, no, because you still feel like you're suffocating. You realise it because his warmth is as well gone in an instant. W-Where did he go?

Rough hands are all over your body, yet they treat you with so much care, helping you turn and lie on your back, soothing down your thighs. One of them at last settles on your cheek, the pad of his thumb caressing it and wiping the tears away. "Y/n? Sweetheart, you with me?"

You sniffle and press the heels of your palms against your eyes, your chest shaking with more sobs that won't stop racking your body. "I'm sorry, 'm so sorry. I-I don't even know-"

"No, no, don't apologise. There's nothing to be sorry for." Your brain still feels foggy as you finally look over at Wriothesley who's crouching beside the bed, giving you enough space to breathe yet still having his hands all over you, not wanting to let you go. Nonetheless, you're able to notice the tension in his posture, in his facial expressions. "Just try to relax, alright? You're okay now." his hand shifts to your hair, fingers combing through the messy strands until they settle on your scalp, soothingly massaging you there. "You did good. It was too much, wasn't it?"

"Couldn't breathe." you whisper and realise that you feel so small in his presence, but not in an inferior way. Wriothesley may look all brutish and intimidating with a strength that could crush any allegedly impenetrable door in the fortress, but you're well aware that he would never use that strength against people that he cares about. "And, uhm-"

Piercing blue eyes watch as you nervously fiddle with the blanket that he has covered you with. But the little peck he gives you on your shoulder tells you that he wants to let you have a breather and take as much time as you need to sort your thoughts. "You seemed a-angry. You were so quiet and, I don't know. It was..."

"Scary?" he finishes for you, a gentle and reassuring smile plastered on his face that alleviates the pressure on your chest.

"Yeah."

Silence invades the bedroom for a short moment, making you forget that you're miles beneath the water surface, that the room which you share with him belongs to a prison, that a few moments prior your body has been in a fight-or-flight mode. The silence reminds you that you're safe and that all of this, all of him, is home. "Will you come back to bed? And hold me?"

Wriothesley's eyes soften at your request and the timid sound of your voice. "Of course, my love." His knees pop when he eventually gets up, pressing a fleeting kiss on your temple before he picks his pants up from the floor and puts them on. Despite the previous events, you can't help but feel a light heat creep up your neck when you get a sight of his naked buttocks.

"Careful with those wandering eyes. I might think you want to continue where we left off." Wriothesley chuckles when you pull the blanket over your head, a futile attempt to hide your embarrassed expression.

"Come here." the mattress dips beside you and you let him tug the blanket off your head. The warmth and smell of his make you sigh in contentment once he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. "I'm the one who should apologise. I was not aware of how much I was hurting you."

The teasing smirk and brief leisurely attitude are gone, replaced by a seriousness that you usually only get to see when he's handling work related matters. He kisses your face again and again, further silent apologies that he hopes will lessen the pain inside your chest. And his. "I was a little irritated, yes, but that had nothing to do with you. Some inmates got their hands on a few bottles of wine." he explains. "Those drunkards started spewing lots of nonsense when I confronted them about it."

What did they say?" you inquire quietly, your eyes slowly but surely feeling heavier. With a palm against his naked chest, you notice the rapid heartbeat but decide to not give it any mind, since Wriothesley's tender strokes along your back are truly not making it easy for you to stay awake and think straight.

He stops his movements for a short moment, clenching and unclenching his fist as his eyes trail over the red, irritated skin of his knuckles.

"Your grace has turned quite soft." "Your little mouse must be doing a great job in bed, huh?" "Why don't you lend her to us? I'm sure we could teach her a thing or two?"

"Nothing you should worry your head about." his voice is merely a whisper as his lips move against your forehead before he buries his nose in your hair and resumes to trace more soothing shapes on your lower back.

a/n : thank you for your patience, dear anon! hope you'll see this since your request has been sitting for a while in my inbox-

[woso-dreamzzz]

If You Were My Little Girl II

Alexia Putellas x Teen!Reader

Summary: Things are looking up

Alexia watches from the stands.

They're mostly empty, like almost all Barcelona B matches.

Women's football has only really started picking up steam recently but only at the top flight. The lower level leagues are still having a bit of a popularity issue.

But Alexia, for once, finds that she doesn't mind.

Because it means she can sit practically alone in the stands as she watches the home match.

A notepad sits on her lap, a pen tapping against the pages thoughtfully as she watches.

Barcelona B are good and Alexia has never expected anything different. She's seen the system at work many times as La Masia churns out players like Aitana and Pina and Jana, and more recently Vicky and Martina.

There's a reason so many clubs wants La Masia products.

They're all good players but even now, Alexia can tell a great player when she sees one.

You rise up among the crowd in the box and slam the ball into the goal, the net rippling with the force of the shot.

The best part, Alexia thinks, is that you didn't even need a moment to control the ball, hitting it in on the volley and grinning as your teammates practically dogpile you.

A hattrick in ten minutes is impressive in any league and Alexia makes another note in her notebook, humming softly to herself.

She rises out of her seat at the end of the match, disappearing into the building and out the doors.

It takes another half an hour for you to appear again, hair damp and an old crew neck sweater that Alexia's pretty sure is Alba's being tugged over your head.

You slip into the passenger seat, throwing your bag into the backseat and Alexia pulls your head down to press a kiss against the side of it.

You smile shyly at her as she offers up the fries she'd bought for a job well done.

"You did good, kid," She says," Very impressive."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. But I think we're going to work on evading slide tackles next," Alexia says as she drives off," We're trying to keep those ankles of yours intact, alright? I'm going to need them this season."

You roll your eyes and Alexia clicks her tongue.

"Don't roll your eyes at me," She says," I've got a good feeling about that meeting later in the week. A great feeling, actually. You should have one too."

"I'm managing expectations."

Alexia looks at you fondly. "Well, we'll see which one of us is right in a few days."

She lets you choose the music in the car, like she always does when you've scored a goal and you pull up to the apartment a lot quicker than you want to seeing as you're in the middle of singing along to your favourite song but, still, you drag yourself out of the car and up the stairs.

"How was the match?" Olga asks as she greets Alexia with a kiss on the lips.

"She did very well," Alexia brags," A hattrick within the first ten minutes and another goal in injury time."

"Exciting," Olga says indulgently as Alexia grins, already giving her running commentary of everything that happened during the match.

You escape though, hurrying to raid the cupboards before Alexia finally comes to her senses and tries to stop you 'spoiling' your dinner.

You don't know if there's any way to thank Alexia for what she's done for you.

Just three months ago, you were convinced that you were going to quit. You had no passion for the game, no hope of what your future was going to be but now all of that had changed.

You had direction. You had a manager. You had new boots and a place to live that wasn't a group home and support and love and everything seemed to be coming together for you.

A toe pokes you in the leg.

"Move."

"Alexia says that if you're trying to nap on her sofa again then I don't have to move," You tell Alba, who huffs and pokes you with her toe again," She also says that you have your own apartment and should stop mooching of us."

"But Olga's a better cook than me," Alba complains and you roll your eyes.

"Aren't you an adult? Even I can cook."

"Yeah but it's not like you could mooch off your sist-"

Alba falls silent quickly and you pretend to not notice what she was going to say for both hers and your own sakes.

The topic of your sister is kind of off limits when you're in the room. It's not completely banned because Alexia's still Jenni's national teammate but she's not really spoken about if you're in the room.

Alba's face flashes with terror for a moment so you pretend you don't notice her slip up ever though it sends a bolt of lightning into your stomach, a deep pit forming there.

It works for the most part, everyone in the house pretending Jenni isn't who she is to you, pretending that she's just Alexia's teammate and not her friend and ex, pretending that Alexia fostering you isn't her walking on a tight rope because Jenni doesn't know.

All Jenni knows is that you didn't quit when she told you to.

Jenni doesn't know that you live with Alexia. Jenni doesn't know anything. You doubt she even thinks about you when she's got a life far away in Mexico.

She lives there, far away from you and your life here in Barcelona.

She lives there and her presence is hardly ever mentioned around you.

Life is good at Alexia and Olga's house. Life is even good at training, though you could do without the smug little smirk Alexia has on her face when she picks you up.

"You already knew!" You accuse her, waving a finger in her face.

"Knew?" She asks, lips curl up in what can only be described as pure smugness," Knew what?"

"Right, who told you? Go on. Who was it?"

Alexia grins. "You do realise I am the captain? Any time they're looking to bring someone in, they ask me my opinion."

You roll your eyes. "Yeah and I'm sure you gave it."

"You're a good player. A great player," Alexia says," All I did was tell them what they already know."

You look down at your lap, fidgeting with your fingers. You want to be mad at her, to yell at her for keeping this from you. Maybe even yell at her for promising to the staff something you're not but you know she hasn't done that.

If she thought you weren't ready, she would have told them that.

But Alexia didn't. She didn't tell them to let you have a bit more time with the B team. She didn't tell them that you don't quite have what it takes.

"Thanks."

Alexia smiles at you as she drives home, a comfortable silence enveloping you both until your hand is on the door handle.

You stop.

"When I open this door, there's going to be a party, isn't there?"

"I may have told Olga...who told Mami...who told Alba...who told the rest of the family..."

"Is that a yes?"

"Possibly..."

"And there's no getting out of this?"

Alexia ruffles your hair, a soft kiss being pressed to the side of your head. "They're here to celebrate you."

You suck in a breath, just ready to turn the handle when the sound of the lift doors opening chimes down the corridor.

Both you and Alexia turn your heads towards.

It's just a fleeting second.

Just a moment.

But your good mood plummets as the door opens.

Alexia's hand tightens on your shoulder, pushing you slightly behind her and putting herself between you and the elevator.

Between you and Jenni.

[snoopychris]

introducing… dad’s best friend!chris x reader

warnings: unprotected p in v (DO. NOT. DO. THIS.), no use of y/n, reader has daddy issues, chris is 33 and has a daddy kink, a little dirty talk, dumbification if you squint. oh and also dad!chris.

“so you have kids? you look like one yourself but… maybe i’m just flattering you. but you gotta be at least 18 to be at the airport alone and you’ve got a vertical ID so you’re at least 21.” the bartender speaks, continuing to shake your drink all around.

you chuckle and shake your head, leaning your chin further into your chin. “no i don’t. i’m 23 though…i should probably get on that or something. i don’t even got a boyfriend… just visiting my dad and his new family for the new years. you? any kids?” he sends you a smile as he places the drink in front of you, tasting it from a straw before handing it off. “what is this again?” you ask, furrowing your brows as you take a sip.

the man across the counter chuckles as he grabs another drink ticket, making the beverage all while conversing with you. “i call it the chris. named after the best damn bartender this place has ever known. me. duh. but yes. i got a son. he’s 4. his names owen.”

“he probably looks up to you. don’t screw him up. but with all that aside, how can you be so sure of that?” you whisper, licking your lips as you grab the drink from the counter once more.

“i’ve been workin here since i was 18 years old. first 3 years i was only washing dishes but ive seen a good amount of bartenders come and go. i know im the best bartender that’s ever been here. 15 years of evidence.” his voice is more confident than cocky. a kind of attitude you’d kill to be in bed with. you hum in acknowledgment, looking at your suitcase besides you as the airport PA begins to speak again. the words are incomprehensible, but chris seems to understand them. some flight is leaving from gate B17.

“you think it’s weird or pathetic or something if im drinking at an airport bar at 2pm to avoid seeing my father?” you question, stirring the drink around with the small plastic straw.

“i’ve seen people here blackout drunk at 11am. i think you’re fine. what’s your name again, kid?” he asks, his lips parting as he pours a beer for a man besides you. you give him your name and he hums, handing you a piece of chocolate from behind the bar. “i think kid suits you better.” you furrow your brows at the gesture, reluctantly taking the sweet. “kid, just take it. it’s a piece of chocolate. no harm done if you take it. you don’t even gotta eat it. just get that look off your face. you look sad. you’re too pretty to look that sad.”

you blush at his words, popping the chocolate into your mouth. you slide your empty glass back across the bar, sending the bartender a smile- a real smile- and thank him honestly. “what time does your shift end?” you question, noticing another bartender begin to settle in.

“my shift? the second that you tab out. you want another and keep enjoying my company or you gonna head to your dad’s house?” he teases, washing the glass you handed to him. you shake your head and sigh, sitting up straight. “should probably head home. can i get the tab?” you whine, leaning your arm and head on the marble counter.

“nah i got it. get outta here. go see your dad. be nice to him.” he smiles, clocking out for the day. you slowly walk away, hesitantly pulling your bag with you.

when you finally make it out of the airport after an excruciatingly long walk, you let out a sigh. you knew you had four options. call a cab, call an uber, call one of your high school friends, or call your dad. you take a moment outside to gather your thoughts, only being brought back to reality when you bump into somebody behind you.

“shit i’m so sorry!” you groan, turning to profusely apologize to whoever was the victim. you smile when you notice that it’s chris. “oh. you again. following me are you?” you tease, poking at his shoulder.

“why you still here?” he questions. even though he hardly knew you, he felt like he still had an authority over you for no reason other than he was older than you by 10 years. you shrug as you let out a sigh, looking around. “i just don’t wanna see him yet. i mean… i dunno.”

chris sends you a look of remorse but then pulls you into a tight hug, one you clearly needed. he rubs a hand over his mouth before speaking. “you trust me enough to come back to my place? just till you feel good enough to go to your dads.” the look you gave him made him practically collapse.

your back was arched to a point that you didn’t even know you could reach. your face was buried into a pillow that was most definitely being stained with your mascara. “take it. thaaaaatts a good girl. take that dick. fuck you’re so tight.” chris speaks, his pants getting heavier with each of his thrusts. he’s holding your hands behind your back while you’re pushing yourself back onto his dick. it’s practically impossible for him to go any deeper into you, but you try to get him farther anyway. his grip on your wrists tightens when you let out another one of your whines. he can tell that you’re trying to spit out a sentence but that you’re unable to based on the cockdrunkness you’re experiencing. all you manage to achieve is a “c-cumming” and even that comes out all whiney and in chris’s words ‘pathetic.’ “y’gonna cum? fuck yeah you’re gonna cum. come on, pretty. cum all over daddy’s cock.” he whispers into your ear, leaving a mark on your neck as he lets go of your hands. your orgasm takes over your body, and any control of yourself you had left is out the window. you squirm and shake while chris is just smirking behind you, continuing his thrusts. he pulls out once you’ve settled down, spurts of cum falling onto your ass and lower back.

chris isn’t an asshole. he helps you clean yourself up and look presentable enough to go visit your dad. he even offered to drive you, but you refused because of how close it was. the arrival at your dads house was… fine. his new wife was fine and his four year old son was fine. it was all just fine. you could tell your dad tried cheering you up multiple times but it never worked.

the next day was the same shit, different day. you had to get through the day acting like you liked your step mother, had to get through the day acting like you tolerated children, and had to get through the day acting like your father didn’t hurt you when he left 6 years ago. you’re half tempted to go to the airport just to go to the bar. a knock on the door catches your attention, only furthered when your dad calls out to you. “hey honey can you get that? that must be your brothers friend and his dad, we’re buddies!. i invited them over for lunch!” he yells, to which you comply to almost immediately.

you open the door slowly, your eyes adjusting to the brightness of the outside world. a breath gets stuck in your throat when you’re met with the same eyes you saw at the bar. chris, whose eyes are about to pop out of their sockets, covers his sons ears as he speaks for both of you. “shit.”

a/n: new au who cheered! i did! i did! i finally get to write for chris thank GAWD cause as a chris girl i sure write a lot for matt.

tags(reply or message to be added): @ifwdominicfike @frankoceanfanpage @mattssslutbby @sophand4n4 @matthewsturnsgf @izzylovesmatt @m11rx @chris-hallelujah @sturniolotoast @mattsbrat @wastelandzella @le4hsblog @mattsd0llfac3 @st7rnioioss @isabellewhatt @sturnslutz @chrisscoraline @ayesha-eroticaa

[sometimesanalice]

Dream a Little Dream

Summary: After a long week away in Lemoore, all Bradley wants to do is come home to you. The only thing is, you’re just not where he expects to find you.

Pairing: Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Female Reader

Length: 4.5K

Warnings: so much fluff and a truly smitten Bradley Bradshaw (mdni)

(author's note: this is a fic is set in the 'Like I Can' universe, however it can be read on it's own!)

Bradley throws his head back and lets out low groan as he hits another red light.

Nothing in the past week he’d spent up in Lemoore had felt as long as this drive home from base.

Not the stuffy dinner with the higher ups that had Mav and him exchanging looks from across the table, both of them clearly wishing to be anywhere else than done up in their Dress Whites. Not the long nights sharing a room with Hangman, who snored louder than the multiple phone alarms that he’d kept snoozing instead of turning off, as if the scratchy Navy provided sheets weren’t bad enough on their own. Not the drills or the lectures or the reviewing of the new procedural guidelines or equipment requirements with the crew stationed up there.

He'd felt the all the tension that had been building up over the week melt off of him the moment he’d turned the key in the ignition- the engine to the Bronco rumbling to life after a week of sitting on a parking lot on North Island- knowing that he was finally on his way home.

Technically, he was on his way to your apartment. But it was the same difference to him.

Wherever you were was where he wanted to be.

That was home. You were home.

Minus the fact that the San Diego traffic controllers seemed to have it out for him.

He thought for a moment he’d make it to your place in record time considering that there weren’t many people on the road a 2am. He hadn’t even bothered to turn the radio on, but even 105.3 THE ROCK where hits go to die would be preferable to the way he was agitatedly drumming his thumb on the steering wheel. But he was stubborn and now he left it off out of spite when his drive became a game of ‘How Many Times Will Rooster Hit The Red’.

It had been more stop than go at this point.

“Finally,” Bradley mumbles to himself when the light turns green and shifts out of neutral into first.

When Jake had dropped him off at base after their five-hour road trip back to San Diego, he’d decided to suck it up and stick around to get some of the paperwork that he’d been putting off out of the way so that he could enjoy the days off he had lined up after the trip. He might have lost track of time and caught a second wind filling out flight logs with only the whir of the overhead fluorescents to keep him company, working until he reached the point where he felt like he couldn’t keep his eyes opened anymore. His eyelids getting heavier and heavier with each passing minute he stayed seated at the desk he’d commandeered to work at.

It had been a week of sleeping like shit. And not just because of the creaky, lumpy mattress or Hangman’s snoring. But because he’d gotten used to your soft, warm body pressed against his and the sound of your gentle breathing to lull him to sleep. He’d had a taste of what true luxury was like and now it was hard to go back to the bare minimum he’d known before.

He’d known even before he’d left the building that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep unless you were tucked against him. He’d barely slept 300 miles away from you, but it would have been even worse to go back to his condo knowing you were closer than ever and yet still so far.

Being in the same city wasn’t enough for him. He needed to be under the same roof, under the same covers.

Four red lights later, he’s turning onto your block. By some kind of miracle there’s an open spot big enough for the Bronco near the main entry without him having to maneuver into it with too much effort. It’s another reason why he’s dying to have you move in with him, the parking at your apartment complex is trash. And there are never enough guest spots, even with the parking pass he kept in his glove box.

Bradley lets himself in to your apartment as quietly as he can, opening the door slowly as to not wake you. The spare key you’d given him when you’d first moved here had lived on his own set of keys for the last couple of years, along with the fighter jet keychain you’d picked up for him when the two of you were teens during a family trip to Pensacola as thanks for looking after your hermit crabs. Even if one of them did lose a claw on his watch, which he’d felt guilty about for days, until you told him it would most likely grow back.

He’d never had a lot to be sentimental about, but that keychain with the charm whose silver finish had long been worn off around the edges was one of the few things that had been everywhere with him, so it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

He gingerly sets the key on the console table you had near the front door, trying to keep them from clattering together. Carefully, he toes his boots off and sets his bag down next to them, making sure to keep it off the runner you had in the entryway. He knew you wouldn’t care if he tracked in some dirt on it, but he did.

One of the things he’s always liked about your apartment is how lived in it was.

Even in the dark, Bradley could make out the ruffly curtains you’d hung up over the door to your balcony. And the impressive gallery wall that framed your TV, one that was a mix of your own photos and art that you’ve accumulated along the way. There were more pillows than he thought was necessary on your couch, but made for one of his favorite afternoon nap spots. You usually had fresh flowers on your coffee table, the ones there now from what he could tell looked a little wilted, so he made a note to pick you up something from the shop next to the grocery store when he goes out to restock his fridge.

He lightly treads past your kitchen- and the two different types of coffee makers you had lined up on the countertop- towards your bedroom.

Bradley could already see it in his mind’s eye. The curve of the dip of your waist as you slept under your white comforter with the light blue piping along the edges. Always with a foot kicked out. The framed picture of the two of you on your nightstand. The chair in the corner where your pile of folded-and-to-be-put-away-later clean clothes sat. Your dresser topped with some leafy green thing and your tray of jewelry, where you’d cleared out not one but three drawers - which was a whole half of wooden unit he’d helped you build when you first moved in- for him to use for his things. Not to mention space in your closest too and room on the shoe rack you kept in there.

It was more than what he needed, but that was you. You’d always been the type to go above and beyond for the people you cared about. But now it meant more because you weren’t just sharing your space with him, you were sharing your life with him.

The blinds aren’t pulled closed, so your room is illumined with more city light than he was expecting. And he can see with clarity that everything is in its place.

The picture of him kissing your cheek- your nose scrunched up in that way he knows so well- in the grassy park where you’d surprised him with a showing of one of his favorite movies on one of your first dates together. The white linen covered chair with your clothes had an old sweatshirt of his tossed over the back of it that he knows if he were to pick it up would smell more like you than him. The plant in the white ceramic vase on your dresser was one you’d bought at the farmer’s market almost two years ago now to commemorate your big move there, you’d proudly carried it around for the rest of the morning while he’d carried your ever-growing collection of bags.

Everything right where it should be, except for you.

Your bed is perfectly made up. Well, the side he usually sleeps on is. The are corners still tucked in with the same crisp precision you use to wrap presents. The right side, however, looks like the comforter and sheets were hastily thrown back, a rumpled pile of fabric in the spot where he thought you’d be sleeping.

There’s only one other place where you would be.

Bradley doesn’t even try to quiet his steps as he struts back towards the door with a new destination in mind. He shoves his feet back into his boots, not bothering to retie his laces, as he scoops his keys out of the little bowl he’d just put them in barely even five minutes ago. Only slowing down long enough to make sure he’s properly locked the door behind him before he’s back in the Bronco for the second time that night.

This time the drive feels like nothing. Especially since he hits green lights all the way there.

His lips turn up in an automatic smile when he sees your all-too-practical white Honda Civic parked in the drive way of his condo. He doesn’t think he could find the words to describe the feeling that wells up in his chest at the sight of it.

It just felt right.

Bradley lets himself in, using his own key this time.  

His condo had always felt more like a place to land, rather than a home. Over the last few months though that feeling has changed for him.

For Bradley’s whole life things have felt temporary. The people he met. The things he owned. The bases he lived on. You made him crave permanence in a way he’d never experienced before. The two of you had a couple decades worth of history, but he knew he couldn’t be truly content until his ring was on your finger and you shared his last name.

He can see your fingerprints in this space from the knit blanket draped on his couch to the framed print on the wall over the breakfast nook. He can see the promise of a future together in the fancier-than-he’s-used-to coffee maker on the kitchen counter.

It’s quiet, but not the empty kind.

The light above the stove is turned on illuminating the kitchen.

That was usually his final task of the night before going to bed. Flicking off the brighter overheads in exchange for the softer one that gave him just enough light to avoid crashing into things in the darkness if he woke up in the middle of the night and was on the hunt for something to eat or drink while still half-asleep.

Although it hits him now that he can’t remember the last time he’s turned it on himself.

It was something he’d noticed that you didn’t do at your own apartment when the two of you had first started sleeping together. But now if he thinks back on it, every glass of cool water out of the filtering pitcher you kept in the fridge and every bowl of late-night cereal he’s had that little light has been on to guide him into the kitchen while you slept peacefully in bed.

It’s a realization that lands squarely behind his ribcage.

Bradley kicks his boots off next to your sandals by the door and turns the lock back into place behind him. Normally, he’d take them up to be put away in their proper place, but for now he’s got other more important things on his mind.

He takes the stairs two at a time as soundlessly as he can, avoiding the step that sometimes pops. The first door on the left has been left slightly ajar, just wide enough for him to slip into.

there you are, his heart registers before his eyes do.

Tucked under the green comforter- with that one foot kicked out- on the wooden canopy bed he’d recently purchased is you.

He couldn’t fight back the smile on his face that the sight of you curled up there on his side of the bed, with your face pressed into his pillow, even if he wanted to.

Bradley still doesn’t know how he got to be so lucky that he gets to be the one to see you like this, at complete ease as you sleep, as relaxed in his bed as you are in your own. He’s grateful for every morning he gets to wake up with you and every night he gets to fall asleep with you in his arms.

It’s never been like this for him, not before you. It’s a good thing he’s already told you he loved you, otherwise he doesn’t think he could have been able to hold himself back from waking you up right here and now to tell you.

Quietly, he steps up the side of the bed, taking a moment to admire you looking soft and warm and like everything he could ever want. The few FaceTime calls the two of you had had over the course of the week couldn’t even begin to capture just how beautiful you were. Bradley leans down to brush a featherlight kiss against your temple and straightens back up. You let out a contented hmm, and he hopes you’re dreaming of him.

He’s never needed anything more than to be under those covers with you.

Bradley undresses quickly in the walk-in closet and strips down to his boxer briefs, leaving his khakis to decorate the floor until sometime later when the sun was back up in the sky. Realizing as he takes off his watch that in his rush to get here that he’d left his bag with all his other laundry by the door at your apartment. A grunt of exasperation escapes him, and he’s glad that you’re a deep sleeper and the fact he keeps his baseball bat in the garage. Especially since he’s the one that taught you how to power swing.

The only sound in the room is of your even breaths and his carpet-muffled footsteps as he pads across the room. He lifts up the covers on your side of them bed and slides into the cool sheets, the stiffness in his joints loosening at the contact, and scoots in closer until he can feel your warmth.

He’d been in San Diego for the better part of four hours now, but he hadn’t been truly home until about thirty seconds ago.

Bradley debates for a split-second whether or not to let you sleep or if he should wake you up so you’re not startled to find a 6’ 1” aviator back in bed with you. But he knows you well enough to make an educated guess. He murmurs your name, rubbing a hand gently up and down along your back, and presses his lips together when you let out a soft, sleepy sigh.

You jolt a little as you ease back into consciousness. “B-bradley?”

“It’s just me,” he hums in confirmation as he squeezes your hip, all sleep-warmed skin under his palm. He doesn’t miss the way you relax instantly against him at the sound of his voice, settling further back into him.

“You’re home early.” You reach back for him, your hand finding the base of his head, lightly scratching at his scalp as you weave your fingers through his hair.

“Mav either pulled some strings or took one for the team by staying another day, but we all jumped at the chance to get out of Le-snore early.” You let out a little snort at that.

“’re you hungry?” you offer sleepily, the words a bit slurred and strung together. “Do you want me to make you something?” Bradley is equal parts amused and endeared that you’re not even half way awake yet and wanting to look after him.

His sweet girl.

He presses an affectionate kiss on the back of your neck and wonders if you can feel his soft smile, the one that’s reserved for only you.

“Nah, I’m good,” he says, resting his chin on your shoulder, “I promise.”

He’d snagged a couple protein bars from the mess on base and had scarfed them down as he filled out his overdue flight logs. But also, there was no way he was getting out of this bed now that he was in it. Not for anything in the world.  

Bradley leans in close, letting his lips skim against your ear, “You know this could count as breaking and entering, kid. Always knew that good girl thing was just an act.”

You lightly tug on his hair. “I don’t think that would hold up in court of law seeing as you gave me a key and all,” you retort, you voice still low and raspy from sleep.

“I’m pretty sure I gave my best friend a key,” he drawls, teasingly, “Don’t remember giving my girlfriend one though.” He drops a kiss to your soft-cotton covered shoulder. The shirt you were wearing was one he’d completely forgotten about until you sent him that picture of you in bed sometime past 2am in the early days of when you’d started dating, before the two of you had sex for the first time. His name was printed on the back- right at the very top- along with all the other players on the Washington High Cardinals baseball team from the year they’d won the championship. “Think ‘m going to have to fix that.”

You shake your head amused into his pillow before looking at him from over your shoulder and turning to lean back into his chest. When your eyes meet, there’s nothing but fondness reflected in them. Yours is a face he’s known most of his life, he could read you as easily as any book, and it’s even more apparent just a few inches away from his just how happy you are to see him.

He slides a hand around the side of your neck, his thumb caressing your cheek as he drinks you in. His eyes travel over your forehead, and along the curve of your cheekbones, and down the bridge of your nose, and lands on the dimples framing your smile.

thereyouarethereyouare

Bradley dips down to kiss you for the first time in a week. Your lips part easily, like you’ve been waiting for this too. There’s no rush. Your kiss is slow like honey off a spoon. Just as sweet as it’s meant to be savored. And there’s no doubt in his mind that this was always how it was supposed to be.

You and him.

Him and you.

Together.

“Hi, sweet girl,” he says, warmly.

“Hi, Bradley.” You tilt your head up for another kiss, one he has no intention withholding from you. “I missed you.”

It’s a new feeling for him, knowing he has someone to miss him when he is away. And having someone to miss in return. It’s been a long time since he’s had that in any real way that truly mattered. Bradley knows he’s due for a deployment soon, one that’ll take him from you- from this bed- for months. He’s already found the perfect thing to give you for when he leaves, something to show you how he’ll be thinking of you. But he doesn’t want to dwell on that inevitable reality.

For now, he just wants to share your warmth and focus on the feel of you pressed against him. Enjoying the luxury of getting to have this with you.

He just lets himself hold you the way you deserve to be held. He lets himself kiss you the way you deserve to be kissed. He’ll love you the way you deserve to be loved for as long as you’ll have him.

“I missed you too.” Whispering your name because he likes feel of it in his mouth.

“I think I was having a dream about you,” you murmur against his lips.

Bradley grins. “Yeah? Was it dirty?” You laugh in response, it’s his favorite sound. Happy. You make him so damn happy. He buries his face in the nook where your neck meets your shoulder and breathes you in. Lavender and cedar. Your favorite lotion to put on before bed, and something of his that he can’t put his finger on. “Mm, you smell good.”

“I took a shower before bed, used your body wash,” you tell him, running your hand along his arm. He senses you smile before he hears it. “And you smell like Jake.”

He groans and rubs the coarse hairs of his mustache against the soft skin of your neck. You giggle and try to squirm away from his prickly retaliation, but he’s got you basically pinned to the bed now. All your perfect curves against his firm angles.

“I can’t believe he’s still using a black ice tree air freshener like a damn sixteen-year-old,” Bradley grumbles. As if him and Seresin hadn’t spent enough quality time together over the week, now he was basically in bed with him and his girlfriend.

“At least you’ll know what to get him for his birthday,” you offer less than helpfully, playfully nudging his foot with yours.

Bradley chuckles and props himself up on an arm to gaze at you. He can feel the need for sleep settling over him, the long day and the longer week catching up with him that now he’s home and here with you. He can tell you’re drowsy too from the dewy way you’re blinking at him, and appreciative that you’re indulging him in this bit of pillow talk. In the quiet of his bedroom, he admits, “I went to your apartment first.”

You look almost bashful when you say, “I like these sheets better.” Both of you know that’s not your real answer for why you’re in his bed instead of yours.

He lifts an eye brow, meaningfully. “You have the same ones at your place.” Bradley knows because he made sure to check and buy the same kind for his own bed.

“Semantics,” you reply, breezily. Although he catches a hint of a pleased smile before you lean into trail a few kisses along the underside of his jaw. “Do you want your side of the bed back?” you ask.

“It’s our bed, sweet girl. You can sleep wherever you want,” Bradley says, “I’m good just as long as I can hold my girl.”

You thumb at the dimple of his chin, gazing up at him, “Have you gotten much sleep this week?”

Bradley just hums in response.

The softest of looks coast over your face. Understanding, sympathy, tenderness. It’s all there painted on your face from the little furrow between your eyebrows to the thoughtful search in your eyes as you read his face in return. He didn’t even say a word and you’ve got him figured out.

You tug on his arm and turn back over, taking him with you. Snuggling in so that your body is cradled closer to his, his chest all but pressed against your back. He slides his arm under your pillow and finds your other hand, threading his larger fingers between your own.

He situates your pillow beneath his head, sighing as he gets comfortable on the supportive mattress. He runs his palm over the familiar dip of your waist as you stretch and burrow in further, getting ready to go back to sleep. His fingertips find the edge of your cotton underwear and he follows it over your hip and along the side of your stomach, slipping one under the band to stroke at the soft skin near your hipbone.

It's the same spot where he’d find you butterflies if the two of you weren’t reversed from the way you usually fall asleep facing the other direction. Their location was a pinpoint in his mind, memorized from the moment he’d seen them that very first night together. He liked imagining he could feel the delicate lines of them under his fingertips as he drifted to sleep.

He hears the almost inaudible catch of your breath at his touch. “In the morning,” he promises.

You make a half-hearted noise of dissatisfaction, already well on your way to falling back asleep. He feels more than a little self-satisfied that he’s the one getting these reactions from you, that you want his touch just as much as he wants yours.

“Tease.” You nestle in closer, your ass brushing against his cock in a way that leaves no question it had been done on purpose.

“Menace,” he chuckles, lightly.

You hum, a pleased sound and reach for his wrist, removing temptation for the both of you and slide his hand beneath your shirt right to the very spot above your bellybutton where he normal finds its drifted to during the night on the mornings he wakes up with you in his arms.

The two of you fit together better than he ever could have possibly imagined.

“Hey, kid, what’re you doing tomorrow? I wanted to take you to breakfast.”

“To the place with the banana pancakes?”

Kisses the crown of your head, and he thinks he hears you sigh. “Wherever you want.”

“I could get away with a little hooky,” you yawn, “Maybe we could go to the beach too. Wanna spend the day with you.”

Bradley pulls you in closer, and closes his eyes. “Sounds like a plan.”

“I can’t wait.” It’s more of a sleepy mumble than anything else, but he’s already looking forward to waking up.

He listens as your breathing slowly evens out, knowing when you’ve fully drifted off. It didn’t take you long, the way it never seems to when he’s in bed beside you.

Maybe one day soon he’ll get to have you here with him every night. But until then, this is more than enough, he’s happy to fall asleep with his dream girl tucked on his arm.

Bradley lets himself imagine the day where you come and stay and it’s for good this time, because all of your clothes are in the closet and your mail gets delivered along with his.

And it won’t be just his favorite dream, it’ll be his reality.

I will never not be down bad for a smitten Bradley Bradshaw! Thank you to @yourlocalcringydaydreamer for sending the ask that inspired this soft fic!

Thank you for reading!

You can read more about these two or check out all of my stories here!

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